The Worst Thing About Episode 4 of The Young Pope: Prayer Orgasm

It’s hard to choose which part of HBO’s The Young Pope I dislike most, so in a column called Young Nope, I share the worst thing from that week’s episode.

In the fourth episode of Pope Show, we finally get to see how the Catholic Church really feels about women: uh, hm, bad. Esther, the chaste one, and Sofia, the jezebel, are presented in contrast to each other, but — surprise — they both want to bang the pope. If you thought we’d seen the end of Pope Lenny talking about how handsome he is, you must think you’re watching a much better show. Meeting with the prime minister of Greenland, Pius puts it all out there — again: “I know, I’m incredibly handsome. But please, let’s try to forget about that.”

In his defense, this is the first glimpse we get of Pope Pius’s “leisurewear,” a tight white sweatshirt and joggers, clothes that he wears as he creepily trawls the gardens at night, alone. Mama likes. In this sexy getup, Pius spies Esther through a window having what appears to be extremely unpleasant sex with her husband. This is when the prayer orgasm begins.

As Esther’s husband gives it to her, Pius falls to his knees to pray that the result of this overly aggressive sex is, of course, a little bambino for Esther. The camera cuts between sex and prayer, sex and prayer, sex and prayer so many times that, uh, viewer, you’re supposed to intuit that Pius loves God so much that his love verges on the orgasmic. When the sex ends, so does the prayer, and Pius’s eyes are watering from bliss.